Drifting. [Open, m'dears.]

Vanessa was bored. Frustratingly so. She had very little to do. She had spent the yesterday wondering through Hogsmeade and tripping people up, and the day before that she had been playing piggy in the middle with Peeves, with Filch as the piggy, and Mrs. Norris as the ball. That had been quite entertaining, and Vanessa would have loved to have done it again, but she hadn't seen Peeves all day and she needed him to help her find and steal the cat. The animal was too quick on her feet for Vanessa alone to catch.

So she was perched atop the windowsill, exhaling against the cool glass of the window and drawing in it. She'd drawn two birds, in her mind a robin and blue-tit but of course, with no colour, it was impossible to tell, and also a stickman with a smiling face and no eyebrows. She was humming, as she drew. She did not recognise any particular tune, however.

Craig strode down the halls, fingers laced together behind his back. His deep green cloak swept behind his confident footfalls. The Dark Lord had been oddly silent lately, leaving him out of his plans. Craig was frustrated. What was the point of him being back in this blasted place if he had no purpose?! He had worked so hard to gain this position and now it seemed to amount to naught. He had met students who would be easily drawn to their cause, but they needed something to rally around, and he didn't have anything to present them as of yet.

As he walked, an odd high-pitched humming interrupted his thoughts. He winced at the lack of a tune. But, curious, he turned into the nearest classroom. To his surprise, he found the ghost of a girl sitting at a windowsill. He raised an eyebrow and said dryly, "I didn't realize ghosts had any artistic talent." he smirked at her pitiful drawings.

Vanessa turned, suddenly, to see who had spoken, and saw one of the professors standing before her. He was not one that she knew but she had seen him wondering across the halls once or twice, and she was certain his name began with an R, or perhaps a V... one of the two. But aside from that, the man was completely foreign to her. He had a smirk on his face as he mentioned her drawings. She recognised the hidden insult in his words but she simply smirked back, finding his quips humorous.

"Oh, we do, don't you think?" She said, with a smile on her face as she glanced back at her drawings. She smudged out the stick man's head with her thumb, however, not particularly wanting him to be seen. "Yes, we're incredibly artistically talented." She said, turning back to him. "And I'd reckon I could beat anything you'd draw easily. Art requires a degree of competence, after all. You seem lacking in that department, and I don't doubt you are equally lacking in other departments as well." She fixed him a wide grin, but her eyes remained challenging.

She wasn't particularly interested in verbal spars, but they could be entertaining sometimes. This man appeared to her as one of abundant masculinity, which although initially always seemed like a strength, was actually most commonly the greatest weakness, and it was also the most exposed. She wondered if she would puncture it at all, perhaps not with the words she'd just spoken, which were gentle and playful, but eventually.

When the girl turned around, Craig froze in shock. It was Vanessa. By the look on her face, she obviously didn't recognize him. But then, why should she? It had been nearly 20 years. And he certainly was not the boy she had known in school. Emotions he had long since locked away battered at his mind. He couldn't help but smile slightly in return. At least she still found him entertaining.

He smirked at her comment, impressed with her ability to fire back so readily. It seemed, though her appearance hadn't aged, her personality seemed to have changed since he had known her. He flicked his black hair from his face and loosed a charming smile. "I will readily admit that I possess almost no artistic talent. But I am sure I am quite competent in...all...other areas." his eyes flashed suggestively. "Let's just say...No one has ever left my presence...unsatisfied..."

He grinned, watching Vanessa carefully. Her eyes were full of an intense fire. "You should know better than to play such games with me, Little Nessa." It was the nickname he had given her all those years ago. It had irritated her then and it was sure to inflame her now. "You never did manage to end up...on top."

For a moment, he looked shocked, perhaps at what she'd said - what? Had he expected her to simply mumble an agreement, or something along those lines? Surely he had anticipated she'd insult him back. She didn't understand why he looked so surprised, but his look of shock was gone in a moment and replaced with a smirk. Vanessa's eyebrow rose as as he hinted at his 'competence in all other areas'. Charming. "I don't doubt that," she began, floating away from the window sill and closer to him. "They were leaving your presence, after all, of course they'd be satisfied." She said, a wicked grin on her face now. She was quite pleased with that one.

She watched him curiously, noticing a strange kind of humour in his eyes - it wasn't malicious, but that was what was unsettling. She didn't know what he was planning but there was some kind of warmth in his eyes, but why would there be? What did that mean? She jumped slightly at his calling her 'Little Nessa'. She hadn't been called that in twenty-odd years.

"Craig?" She asked, her voice quiet from the surprise. So that was what was going through his head. He might have been the boy she'd befriended all those years ago, when she was still alive. "Is that you?" The corner of her mouth curled upwards slightly at seeing him, although she refused to outright grin - they were in a sparring match, after all, and she couldn't trust him to use this against her.

Craig grinned appreciatively at her snappy retort. "Touche, my dear." His mind seemed sluggish, overwhelmed that he was standing in a room with Vanessa Corvus. It had been so long. He hadn't realized she had chosen to remain as a ghost....His eyes grew slightly shadowed as recognition filled her face. But he forced a small, sad smile.

"Yes, little Nessa. It is me. Who knew after all this time, I'd be back in this castle. I didn't realize you were....still around. You should have sent me an owl," he said with false innocence.

He had left school shortly after...the incident. So, he had no way of knowing his old friend's ghost had remained at the castle. And he had essentially disappeared himself at the same time, severing all contact with those he had known, even his family.

Vanessa grinned at the other. She hadn't expected she'd ever see Craig again. After she had died, she had spent a lot of time haunting forests and rivers and other natural, lonesome areas as she mourned - it was considerably later when she dragged herself back and Dumbledore allowed her to stay. Really, Hogwarts was the best place for a ghost. You were treated best there. She had once met, in her mourning years, a ghost who took up residency in a large manor house and the occupants ("Muggles," he had whispered roughly, one time after a particularly nasty encounter with them which had included Vanessa. "Magic blood but there's absolutely no magic in any one of 'em!") They would often scream and throw things at the ghosts whenever they encountered them - and the things they screamed were quite frightening. Once they had tried to call for help but no help came and after that Vanessa very quickly left the Manor house - for they got considerably worse.

She found herself filled with a warm kind of feeling in her chest, at seeing her old friend. He'd aged considerably since they last saw each other - which was expected and understandable, but still a little surprising. There was something so very sad about this moment. He was grown up now, and she was

dead.

He looked sad, too. For a moment, she allowed his sadness to be reflected on her own face, before she cheered up once more. "Owls don't tend to get along with ghosts." She said, matter-of-factly. "So, what have you been up to, professor?" She said, snorting as she did so. She struggled to see him as a teacher of any sort. "Other than satisfying people."

Craig didn't know what to say...or do. And that was quite disconcerting for him. He had learned to gain control over each and every situation. Or things could quickly spiral out of control as they had when he was in school. He slowly traced his lips with his pointer finger, refocusing his thoughts and reigning in his mixture of joy and sorrow at seeing Vanessa. She looked the same, albeit a bit more...transparent. He, however, he knew, had aged considerably. But for the better, in his opinion. He was stronger now. He wouldn't be pushed around by half-bloods and mudbloods any longer. He was in control.

He smirked when she called him professor. "Oh you know me, little Nessa. Picking fights wherever I go. But Dumbledore could not deny my skill at potions when the time came for him to seek a new potions professor. My younger sister, Aliss, as you probably know, is already here. I expect he trusts her to keep an eye on me should I look to 'spin out of control'." he rolled his eyes.

He hadn't reacted well to Vanessa's death, and the magic he had unleashed after the...incident..was not exactly the most innocent of spells. They had been spells he had learned from the Death Eaters. He suspected that Nessa had guess he had joined the death eaters in his fifth year, but she never asked. That was part of the beauty of their friendship. Don't ask. Don't tell. Things were much simpler that way.

"But my life has been painfully dull since leaving school," he lied. "I got a job as a curse breaker in South America. That was...interesting at times, but nothing too exciting. And you, little Nessa? been haunting up the castle for the last 20 years?"

Vanessa smirked at the man standing before her. "It's nice to see you lost for words for once, Rivera." She said, fiddling with a lock of her hair momentarily. Even when he was younger, he had been quick with words. It had always been she who had been the quiet one - she was never shy, but she never spoke unless she had something to say. She preferred to watch everyone else. It was only once she died that she ceased holding her tongue. To see Craig in such a state, like their roles had been reversed, was intriguing to the girl - she hadn't seen this side of him very often in life. He liked to be in control, and usually she would let him because, well, she saw no reason not to. It usually never effected her. The same could not always be said for the younger students who got in their, or rather his, way.

"Charming." She said, considering him scurrying around the dungeons, concocting rancid potions of ridiculous colours and scents and storing them away in little glass vials. Potion-making was, in her eyes, a delicate process, and it was strange to imagine him doing it. But he was not the same Craig she had once known in school, so she was not too surprised that he was not as she expected. The news that he was still 'picking fights wherever he went' was less shocking to her. "Oh, don't call me 'Little Nessa'!" She hissed, frowning at him.

"Your sister?" She echoed, quietly. She considered her relationship with Alliss. Craig surely did not know that the two women weren't on the best of terms. Vanessa did not think Craig would care too much for Vanessa's dislike of his little sister. She shook her head, as if to shake the thoughts out of her head, and focused on the conversation once more. Alliss was here to keep an eye on her brother? Vanessa watched him curiously. She knew that he could be dangerous. When he was about fifteen or sixteen he changed, and she had always suspected it had been something to do with the Death Eaters - they had been on the rise at that point. But she never asked and she did not intend to now. She had known several families involved with the Dark Lord, but it was not the done thing to talk about it. You simply knew of it, but you wouldn't ever ask others about it. It was a strange, secretive affair, despite the fact that so many people knew about it. Or at least, had their suspicions.

And their suspicions were usually correct.

"Hm, a curse breaker? A curse breaker and then a potions master? You've been a busy boy." She said, with a curious smile on her face. She suspected that he was lying about something - the two career choices clashed. How could one go from one to the other so suddenly? Or, he was telling the truth, but something had happened in South America which he was omitting from his story. He spoke of the job so vaguely that she considered it to be most probably a lie, but she didn't outright ask about it. She gave him a dirty look as he referenced her haunting the castle. "Don't insult me. I'm not that boring." She began. "I traveled, for a bit. Went all over Britain. Visited France once. For a while, I haunted muggle hospitals." Two truths and one lie. "I only came here fairly recently. Might move on at some point. I don't know." She shrugged. She hadn't put much thought into what might happen in the future.

Craig smirked. "What can I say...I didn't exactly expect to see you again, now did I?"

"Oh, don't call me 'Little Nessa'!" She hissed, frowning at him.

He chuckled and grinned mischievously. "I never stopped calling you that when you were in school. I'm a bit more set in my ways now...it is definitely not going to happen. Little Nessa.." he added pointedly.

"Yes, Alliss. She's the defense against the dark arts professor. This is actually the first time I've seen her in several years...And she's STILL avoiding me." he grinned wryly. "Family, right?"

He maintained his small grin and brushed his long dark hair away from his eyes. "Curse breaking wasn't my thing. Too simple."
With his intellect, things like that didn't provide him much of a challenge. "It got boring after the fifth time...and when I heard the position was open here at Hogwarts, well....who would turn down an opportunity like that?"

His face grew suddenly serious. For some reason it bothered him to think of her roaming around so alone like that. They had spent so many hours together. And he had defended her from bully after bully. To find her body......he had failed her. He should have protected her better. He crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles rippling with the movement, and looked away from her, eyes lost in the past. He remembered the two of them hiding out in this very classroom more than twenty years ago, playing a game of wizards chess. If he hadn't grown so hard over the years, his heart might have broken. But...he was stronger than that now.

"No one ever told me what happened," he suddenly said in a fierce whisper.

Vanessa shrugged. "Even so, it's a pleasant change of pace, you being the quiet one for once." She smirked at the other. He had a point though - he had probably assumed that he'd never see her again and so had probably pushed all memories and thoughts of her to a very distant corner of his mind. She wondered how effectively he'd managed to forget about her.

She shot him a dirty look and folded her arms over her chest. "I am not so little. I am one of the undead, a ghostly spectre, I haunt the castle and I am constant, forever. I am the stuff of nightmares. You should fear me." She said, mockingly, her eyes wide and sparkling. She rose from the window sill, her hands falling from her chest to her hips. "Me and Alliss don't see eye to eye." She said, simply, shaking her head slightly as she spoke, as if to indicate how thoroughly she disagreed with Craig's sister. "Family, indeed." She said, quietly, glancing at the floor. But she spoke and thought no more on the subject of family, as she glanced back up at her old friend and her lips once more formed a smirk.

"Hm, haven't you been busy." She said, absent-mindedly. She still felt slightly suspicious and still doubted him, despite having no genuine reason for feeling so. She supposed it was simply her inability to adjust to this new Craig - this adult one. It was as much a shock to her to see him grown up, as it was for him to see her as a ghost. For, as she suspected he had done himself, she had cast most living memories away in the first few years of her new 'life'. It wasn't until later that she had allowed herself to consider her living life, and to remember it. It was difficult, at first, to recognise just how much she'd lost along with her own life, but she slowly recovered. She learnt how to deal with it. And she had all the time in the world to, and more, after all. "Still, I can hardly imagine you as a potions master..."

She watched him as something changed quite suddenly in his mind, and he became angry. He became hard. And cold. Like her. "What is it?" She asked, curiously, the smirk fading from her features. His arms were crossed over his chest and his expression was quite serious, and she bit her lip silently. She sighed as he spoke, and for a moment, had to glance around the room, at anything, just to avoid seeing him, for she felt quite guilty at what he said. Her arms fell to her sides.

"Told you what happened? When?" She asked, despite knowing full well what he meant. She just didn't want to answer. Not yet, at least. She didn't want to talk about it and she didn't want to talk to him about it. It felt quite cruel.

"I am not so little. I am one of the undead, a ghostly spectre, I haunt the castle and I am constant, forever. I am the stuff of nightmares. You should fear me."

Craig rolled his eyes with a smirk. "No, I suppose you aren't so little anymore to others. But to me you will always by little nessa. I told you that long ago..."
He fought back a snort as she spoke of Alliss. "No one sees eye to eye with Alliss. Maybe if she'd get off that high horse of hers once in a while...But no...she is too set in her ways. Convinced she can save...the world." He had almost said 'me'. Not that he needed saving. He was quite content where he was. But his sister seemed to think he needed to be plucked from the death eaters.

"Still, I can hardly imagine you as a potions master..."

He clasped his hands behind his back as if to prove he could handle it. "Potions was always my favorite in school, if you remember. But then again, we didn't talk much about school work now did we? No, we talked about the more important things in life." he smirked again. "But yes, it is a position that allows me to instill....discipline...in these students. Potion requires more than any other subject in my...humble...opinion. And it is a skill they will need in their adult lives."
Discipline was something he had learned early on. Without discipline, people got hurt. Emotions ran wild. Annoying things, emotions. It was those emotions that got him into trouble in the first place.

"Told you what happened? When?"

Craig scowled at her feigned innocence. his head snapped back to glare at her, his eyes alight with barely contained anger. "You know exactly what I'm talking about Vanessa." he snapped.
Realizing he was just a heartbeat away from losing his temper completely, he took a deep shaking breath. He swiped a hand over his aged face. He was only 36, yet he had already dealt with so much. He couldn't bring himself to look at her again, not knowing if he could restrain his emotions if he saw her.

Vanessa frowned. "I'm not little." She insisted. She glanced at her drawings momentarily, they'd almost completely faded away now. She didn't particularly care, they were not works of art, but still, she was surprised for a second to see how suddenly they had disappeared. She turned back to face her old friend.

"Hm, I agree," She said, slowly, as she considered her relationship with Craig's younger sister. "She doesn't have much patience for me, but I have none for her, so it's even..." She noticed how he changed what he was saying mid-sentence. "Save the world, eh?" A single eyebrow raised, she watched him. In the past, their relationship has been one of 'don't ask don't tell', but they had both changed since then and Vanessa was tired of pretending not to notice. "What else is she convinced she can save?"

She mirrored him, her hands joining behind her back. She smirked as she imagined him brewing potions in the dungeons. "Yes, but enjoying a subject is different from teaching it. I can't imagine you as a teacher." She said, nonchalantly. She grinned at his reference to their past talks, sometimes spoken in hushed whispers. "Discipline isn't the most important skill." She stated, shaking her head once in disagreement. "Humility is," she said, looking away, "humility and humanity."

She jumped slightly as his voice raised, and she stared at him with slightly wide eyes. Then a sad, resentful look appeared on her features, and she stared at the floor below her. "Yes, of course." She said, simply, in a quiet voice. "Nothing happened." She began, before deciding that that was a lie. She had no issue being dishonest with him, after all, she suspected that he had lied to her at some point during their conversation, but to lie to him about matters such as what had happened. That seemed sadistic.She decided to continue being vague. "I died. What else is there to say?" She said simply, and considered leaving. She wanted to. She was torn between running away to hide and cry somewhere unreachable by the living, like the plumbing or ventilation shafts, or staying and talking to her old school friend. She was not a coward, she decided. She wouldn't run away. She was stronger than that. She raised her head to stare at him once more, her face hardened.

"What really happened to you? Tell me the truth and I might consider telling you the truth in return. We used to be friends, Craig - what are you concealing from me - or rather, what are you concealing from yourself?"

Craig smirked. "Of course you're not," he said patronizingly, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"She doesn't have much patience for me either," he said with a dark chuckle. His eyes darkened as Vanessa asked that question. "Things that don't need saving.:" At Vanessa's raised eyebrow he added. "Everyone has different views on life. Doesn't mean we should try to change the other person." He forced a blank, hard expression to cover his face.

He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "No? You can't see it? Here, I'm able to keep the same thing from happening to these students as happened to me."
He shook his head. No, humility only got you hurt. When he had been humble about his intellect, he had been bullied mercilessly by his peers. Only once he had embraced the power he could have did it stop. and THAT had required discipline. Lots and lots of discipline.

"Nothing happened?" he demanded in a cool voice. "Your dead, Vanessa," he said in almost a cruelly blatant voice. "I wasn't there to protect you, and you died." Was that a crack in his voice? No...Craig Rivera would never show so much emotion. "I watched out for you all those years...and then..." Again, he swiped a hand over his face. "nothing. Everyone refused to tell me anything."

"What really happened to you? Tell me the truth and I might consider telling you the truth in return. We used to be friends, Craig - what are you concealing from me - or rather, what are you concealing from yourself?"

Craig fell silent, his face hard and blank as stone. "You don't want to the answer to that question, Nessa," he said in a low voice. "Yes, we used to be friends, and I never told you because I needed to protect you. And now?" He sighed. now...what? he had failed in protecting her then. There wasn't anything he could protect her from now. But...but she wouldn't understand. No one did.
"I conceal nothing from myself," he growled. "I know who I am, and I know what I must do. I did not lie. I did indeed spend much time in the temples of South America before returning to this....place" he waved his arm, gesturing at the castle.